


No Gentleman

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16225946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Prompt: It was a last-ditch effort and he knew it was a shitty move, but before Scully left the UH, Mulder asked her to marry him.





	No Gentleman

She has everything she wants in a suitcase. He stands between it and the door. If he were a gentleman he’d take the case, open the door and walk her to the car. If he were a gentleman he’d tell her she’d dropped her keys on the mahogany hall table last night before telling him she’d be leaving the next afternoon. 

If he were a gentleman he’d let her leave with dignity and call her later to make sure she’s okay.

He will call her later. Be he won’t be a gentleman. He’ll break down in tears to demand her attention and do nothing to assuage his guilt. He’ll just add to hers.

She finds the keys, picks up the case and walks down the creaking steps. The trunk of the car rises too high for her and she has to do an awkward half-jump to pull it back down. If he were a gentleman he’d have gone out there and helped her. Instead, he stands on the deck and watches the rain soak into the silvered wood of the verandah handrails, streak across her car windows, dampen her long hair so that she gathers in in one hand behind her neck as she slides into the seat. 

He’ll dream about those frizzy strands later. Dream about dancing in the rain, watching rivulets drop from her chin, puffs of her breath disappearing in the narrowing space between them.

The space between them closed completely for a long time. They were joined. They became one. And for a while, in a strange twist, their solidness together allowed the light to shine. But he began to pick at the edges, plucking and tweaking, then wrenching them open so that the darkness poured back in. He’s always been able to find the dark.

She sits in the drivers seat with the engine running and looks out the window at him. She is waiting for him. He is waiting too, but he doesn’t know why. He feels like they’ve been waiting this way for a while now. They’re way past the truth now. Even the quest they were on is falling away, crumbling into a pile of dusty memories. The pieces too fragile to fit back together to make any sense, to build a strong enough foundation for a future. They’ve been sitting on opposite sides of the table, in different cars, at each other’s desks with nothing to bind them together but an incredulous history.

In his head he replays their conversation.  
“Where will you go?”  
“There’s an apartment block close to the hospital.”  
“So you’ve had all this planned?”  
She shook her head and a strand of her hair fell from the messy bun knotted at the back of her head. There were smudges under her eyes. The shadow of her cheekbone carved a sharp line across her face. Like the toll of their losses had etched itself permanently on her skin. A tattoo of all the things they didn’t say.  
“I’ve thought about it,” she said, fixing her eyes on a coffee ring on the kitchen table. “But it’s not something I’ve planned. I just can’t…” 

Her finger traced the half-circle, tapping at the area where there was no stain. Trust Scully to pick out the clean spot, the pristine. She looked up, eyes wet. He recognised the lip roll, the slight flare of her nostrils, signs of the conflict raging in her mind, Dr Scully vs Dana the lover. It’s something she struggled with for years. Compartmentalising each aspect of her life as a coping mechanism. But a crossover was inevitable at some point. She’d diagnosed the depression. She just couldn’t cure him. Didn’t know how to love it out of him.

“Can’t put up with me anymore?” The chair legs scraped across the floor.   
“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s not like that, Mulder. And you know it.” 

So she closed down. Just like that. He slapped his mug off the table and watched the coffee run down the cupboard doors.

The rain stabbed at his face, drilling cold into his skin, startling him out of the unwanted grey haze that often shrouds him. She is so real there, Scully. Such a bright force, sitting behind the wheel. Colours are suddenly bright. He shields his eyes against the lush spring fields, the silver of her car, the auburn of her hair, the steel blue of her eyes. The window is down and she is smiling and crying in that Scully way she has, like she experiences all her emotions in one hit where his crawl through him in slow spurts, anger raging here, unfathomable sadness pulsing there.

“You will be all right, Mulder,” she says and reaches a hand out to lay it on his forearm. It’s a command. She’s asking for a commitment. He looks down at her fingers, strong, bare of polish, of jewellery. 

If he were a gentleman he would never have asked her to marry him. If he were a gentleman he wouldn’t have told her to leave when she didn’t give him an answer. 

He stands in the driveway for a long time after her car has disappeared. His shirt is still soaked to his skin when he calls her later.


End file.
